


Fake Your Life

by pomegrenadier



Series: In the Wings [5]
Category: Hunter: The Reckoning, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (Video Game), World of Darkness (Games)
Genre: Angst, Blood Drinking, Canon-Atypical Optimism, Canon-Typical Violence, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Mashup of CRPG/TRPG Mechanics and Lore, Post-Canon, Suicidal Thoughts, Swearing, Thaumaturgy: It's Overpowered My Dudes, Trans Character, liberties were taken
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:28:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25932112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pomegrenadier/pseuds/pomegrenadier
Summary: The game is over. The show must go on. Victor gets a job, makes some friends, and tries to reach the lofty heights of "okay."Then someone learns the truth.
Series: In the Wings [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1735327
Comments: 37
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "We Don't Need Another Song About California," by MCR, because it is a very good song about California. We might not need it, but I'm sure glad we've got it.

JULY 2006

Fun fact: flying international as cargo while pretending to be a corpse is not as bad as it could have been. It's _bad,_ and it'd be fucking horrendous if Victor were claustrophobic, but with some careful timing and decent music, it levels out at _tedious and unpleasant._ And also vaguely embarrassing.

But hey. It works. There's a whole system and everything, and it gets him from plane to terminal to car to Los Angeles funeral home, all without a hitch.

Victor listens carefully before clambering out of the coffin. This late, the funeral home is deserted. He takes a few deep breaths—a mistake; the air reeks of embalming fluid and cleaning chemicals, strong enough to be a little painful even without Auspex up. Victor grimaces, rolls his neck, and heads for the exit.

It's only midnight by the time he gets downtown. Plenty of people still out and about. Venture Tower's been repaired. Strauss's spacetime-twisting chantry of arcane whatever hasn't changed at all. A few blocks away, Confession seems to be drawing a crowd—good for Venus.

Victor pauses in front of the Nocturne. When he left, it was closed down, outdated posters curling on its exterior walls, left to bleach and fade in the sunlight. There were guards inside—when the place wasn't in use as a Camarilla convention center—but otherwise, nothing.

Now it's being renovated. Opening in a few months.

Apparently they're hiring crew.

Victor keeps wandering. It's a warm night, and the city sounds like home. Still. That might be worth looking into.

* * *

Clan Tremere is a goddamn shitshow. It is a centuries-old multi-level marketing scheme. Victor's _situation_ ensured he'd be an outsider from day one, and he has absolutely no desire to change that, thank you very fucking much.

He's still Tremere. Thaumaturgy is quite literally in his blood. And he is very, _very_ good at it. Good enough to take down the city's Sabbat, Kuei-jin, and Camarilla power players within weeks of his Embrace. Good enough to devour every scrap of information he could find on ritual magic, and then teach himself how to use it. Maybe make a few improvements, too.

(He's not sure whether his sire specifically went looking for the kind of person who'd be reckless and arrogant enough to try that, or if the reckless arrogance is a post-mortem addition to his extensive list of personality flaws, or if it's pure concidence that learning about Tremere-the-guy, the mage who stole vampirism, made him think _I could have done better.)_

Of all the tricks he's picked up over the past few years, Wake With Evening's Freshness is easily the most useful, night to night. Or day to day, as it happens. Regaining consciousness several hours early—even if the sun's still a hateful death orb that wants to reduce him to dust, even if it takes an alarm as jarring as a gunshot to wake him up, even if being awake before nightfall is kind of miserable—means that as long as he stays underground or indoors, say, in a building deliberately constructed to have zero natural light, with sewer access in the basement ...

He could make it work. He _wants_ to make it work. Theater kid to vampire warlock to ... what? Some ungodly fusion of the two? If he can make this work, this one stupid pathetically _human_ thing, then maybe—

Then what? What's the point?

Well ... what else is there? Why not? He will never get his old life back, but _why the hell not keep going?_

The show must go on.

* * *

Mitnick still owes him a favor, and sets him up with ID. It's almost funny, that he can use his own name now because the person who went missing two years ago was a woman in the eyes of the State of California. Almost.

He gets the job.

The initial crew is small—himself, David Hark, and Ophelia Wilson; Jane Callahan as stage manager. Jane is statuesque, always unruffled, and a better actor than most of the actors. David is big, sweet, and self-deprecating, and he never misses a cue. Wilson ("Don't ever call me Ophelia," she said, and nobody ever did) is tiny, laconic, and hypercompetent. Victor suspects she may be Batman.

They build sets. They paint backdrops. They learn the Nocturne's ropes. They talk. Wilson's a local; David's from San Francisco. They both play World of Warcraft, but they're rooting for opposite sides. David resents how much he likes Disney movies; Wilson hums the songs while she works on setpieces and smirks when David starts squawking in protest. Wilson maintains a frosty neutrality on the matter of Shakespeare, which is fair, given her name and profession; David is a fan.

"I kind of wanted to be an actor," he says wistfully, unrolling the heavy cloth they're about to start turning into a sunlit forest. "But, y'know, nobody's gonna cast a fat Hamlet. Falstaff, sure, but ..." 

"Fuck them," Wilson says.

David laughs a little, shrugs. "Eh. I like where I ended up." But the wistfulness takes a while to fade.

Victor keeps his personal details vague, listens more than he speaks, and wonders if this is just another form of parasitism.

* * *

He has a bad moment or several early on, glancing out at the house while kneeling to put down spike tape. The woman who murdered him was executed on this stage, in front of an audience of cold-eyed strangers. Victor watched her headless body crumble to ash; he tried not to sob in terror as the man in the suit kept talking, as the executioner turned to him.

He takes a breath he doesn't need, lets it out slow, and says, quietly, "I win, you piece of shit." 

* * *

The crew grows, and Jane wrangles them with a deft hand. Victor doesn't so much avoid the newcomers as fail to connect with them, which is fine. He ends up lurking in the vicinity of the people he already knows, which is ... less fine.

Sometimes Wilson and David go out for drinks after work. They invite him along, at first, and he keeps demurring. He tries not to be envious of them as they get to know each other, as they go from coworkers to friends—but it's like trying not to want blood. It scares him, how much he wants to say yes, but the thought of actually doing it scares him more.

He couldn't even say yes to the Anarchs. He can't—he was bad at this even before he died but now ... no. What if they found out? What if something happened? What if he _did_ something? 

For a week or two, they stop asking. This is an objectively good thing. No need to make excuses. Nice, safe distance. But he can feel himself getting quieter, smaller, pulling back. What does he have to offer beyond that? What's the point of saying anything at all when he's— _what's the fucking point?_

Then Wilson catches him one night, as they step outside after rehearsal, and says, "Are you okay?"

He blinks. "What?"

"Are you okay."

Victor smiles, polite confusion, not a trace of hysteria or misery in sight. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Her eyes narrow a fraction. "David thinks you hate him."

The smile freezes. "Uh," he starts, and then he runs out of words.

"Come with us tomorrow. Drinks on me."

"I don't really, um, drink," Victor says weakly.

Wilson's expression doesn't flicker. "Doesn't have to be a bar. We're a team."

Victor is suddenly, viscerally reminded of the sensation of being staked through the chest. He should say no— 

And it will kill him. Not immediately. Not spectacularly. But he can see it: bit by bit, drop by drop, everything slipping away, chances missed and kindness refused and a desperate hunger growing until it swallows him up, and a final pretty sunrise on the horizon. 

Either he made a mistake coming back, doing this, getting this stupid fucking job—or he didn't. Either he should give up right now, accept he's dead and damned, say no, walk away, stop trying, stop _wanting_ —or not. 

What's the fucking point? One more night. And one more after that. The show must go on.

Victor runs his tongue over his lips and says, "Okay."

Wilson eyes him for a moment. She nods once, not really an acknowledgement, more as if she's coming to a decision of her own. Then she vanishes into the night.

"Love the Batman impression," Victor calls after her.

He hears a very faint snort of laughter. He grins, and heads home. 

* * *

They go to a 24-hour diner, the next night. Victor would have preferred a bar. There, at least, he could imply all sorts of reasonable explanations for why he wasn't eating or drinking anything.

But no, Wilson wanted him to feel included, because she's a _good person,_ and so here he is, sitting across from her and David in a red vinyl booth with a basket of fries and three root beer floats between them, queasily sipping at his. Domino of Life makes it taste okay. Not as good as he remembers, but not repulsive. He will no doubt be singing a different tune when it comes back up in a few hours, but until then, here's to blood magic, and the eleventh-century assholes who invented it. 

The queasiness is more about the whole _socialize with coworkers_ thing. 

"So," David says, digging his straw into the ice cream lump at the bottom of his float. "Um. What changed your mind?"

Victor traces vague, definitely not occult symbols in the condensation on his glass. He glances at Wilson, who locks eyes with him, raises a French fry to her mouth, and snaps her teeth shut on it with a click. Message received. He takes a breath—oh, yeah, he should do that more often since he's facing two detail-oriented humans in a painfully well-lit area. "I am ... not good at this," he says. "But we're a team, and that matters. I'm sorry for being so distant." It's not really an answer, but hopefully it sounds enough like one to pass muster.

"I'm sorry, too," David says earnestly. "We didn't realize we'd been going places you couldn't—well. Now we know."

He tries not to grimace and probably fails. "That's not—uh. Drinking just ... it isn't my thing." Oh the fucking irony. 

"Oh. Um. Got it."

Whether they believe him or not, they go quiet for a while. Then Wilson says, "Star Trek or Star Wars?"

Victor and David stare at her. She shrugs and eats another fry. "Icebreaker. Or friendship-ender. Depends."

David was Wedge Antilles for Halloween, three years in a row, starting from the age of six. Wilson's a diehard Trekkie. She speaks fluent Klingon. Victor likes both, but he'd rather live in Trek. "It's only that dangerous because they're boldly going," he says. "Star Wars is just _like that._ All the time." 

"Not to incite anything, but—how about them prequels?" says David, sitting back and taking a prim little sip of his root beer float, pinky extended.

Wilson makes a face. "Bad," she says. Then, thoughtfully, "Obi-Wan was hot, though."

"Oh, definitely," David says with careful nonchalance, which is _interesting,_ but he also looks a little crestfallen. 

Victor shifts in his seat. The vinyl squeaks. "I kinda liked them? They had problems in the execution but there were some really good ideas." 

David's whole face lights up.

Talking with them gets easier, after that.

* * *

(And if he saw Episode II on opening night with Sam and Jenny, sandwiched between them, heart pounding as the opening crawl began—

If he caught Episode III five weeks into its run, in a dilapidated cinema an ocean away, watching as the world crumbled and everything burned—

If he cried, because it was all _gone—_

What of it?)

* * *

He picks up new habits. He grabs snackfood from the corner store on the way home, bringing it in the next day to leave in the green room for the ensemble. He keeps a water bottle on hand and pretends to drink from it, after a concerned conversation with Jane about staying hydrated. He goes out with Wilson and David about once a week, and it's—fun. It's nice.

He's ... coping. Kind of. Enough. He has a job he enjoys and people he'd tentatively consider friends. He doesn't actively want to die. He _feeds—_ and fuck he hates how that word sounds, how it makes him feel—when and how he can, and the Beast stays quiet, and—and it's enough. It has to be enough. Blood bags and rats, sawdust and wires, paint and electrical tape. 

Every so often he stands center stage, where LaCroix's lackeys dropped him with a stake in his still-cooling heart, and he tells himself that it's over. That he _won._

On good nights he'll take a bow with the crew after a show, floating on an ocean of applause from the house, illuminated by something almost like daylight, and he believes it.

On bad nights ... He keeps going. Cue by cue, minute by minute. Smile like it matters, like it's real. And when it's over, instead of going home, he ghosts back up to the catwalks above the stage. He screws his earbuds in, cranks up the volume, closes his eyes, and doesn't bother pretending to breathe for the span of an album or two. 

There's a rotting silence under the music and there's a starving monster in his head, and on bad nights it is so goddamn hard not to think about sunrise.

And yet: the show goes on.


	2. Chapter 2

JANUARY 2007

"Hey, so, um, my birthday's coming up. Having a little get-together on the ninth. Friends and family," David says. "Stop by? There'll be cake. Not _good_ cake, but, y'know. Cake." 

Victor bites back the instinctive excuses and sudden panic. Friends and family. Shit. "What time?" he says instead. 

"Starts at six. Happy medium between the people with real jobs and us ... _Nocturne_ -al types," says David, smug.

Victor groans, but—he can make it, easy; sunset's even earlier, this deep into winter. He can actually do this. "One, fuck you. Two, I'll be there. Happy early birthday." 

David chortles and glides off towards the lighting booth. "Your presence is the best present!" he trills over his shoulder.

Victor fumes.

* * *

Day of, he wakes up just after five, chokes down a profoundly unappetizing container of animal blood from the butcher a few blocks away—as far as she knows, Victor's just a big fan of sanguinaccio dolce—and takes a shower. He dries off in the cramped little bathroom, eyes the reflection in the foggy mirror, and grimaces.

Domino of Life is useful. He just ... kind of hates using it. It makes bad nights terrible, and it turns good nights _wrong._ The dead stillness where there should be a heartbeat isn't fun, it's not as if he _likes_ it, but—magically jolting his body back to a half-assed semblance of life is worse. 

It's not even that it's a reminder of what he's lost, although that's sometimes part of it. It's that it feels unnatural: a lump of meat lurching grotesquely behind his ribcage; a suffocating, cloying, artificial warmth. At some point, dead stillness shifted from deviation to default. He feels most like himself when he's most like a fucking corpse.

Better to hide behind the Masquerade and some ironic-unironic makeup than oversell it and spiral into a whole new form of dysphoria. Nobody who wasn't already in the know has ever clocked him as a vampire, anyway. 

He still feels obligated to use Domino of Life for this. Too many people, all at once. Too many ways for something to go wrong.

He grits too-sharp teeth and starts sketching symbols in the condensation on the mirror.

* * *

The problem with social gatherings, Victor thinks, is that if you only know two people including the host, but everybody else knows the host _and each other,_ you're stuck either playing wallflower or clinging. 

He's opted for the wallflower approach, lurking in the corner of David's tiny kitchen with a mostly-clear line of sight to the balcony door. He tries not to think about the other tactical advantages of kitchens, such as many readily available sharp objects and plenty of counters and appliances to provide cover.

He tries extra hard not to think about how it's probably unfair of him to co-opt what little protection the apartment has, when the most dangerous thing inside it is him. 

The room is too warm, from all the people. David's housemates and buddies from college. Some cousins from the area. Visiting high school friends he's kept in touch with. They all seem perfectly nice. Wilson's met at least a few of them before, and fits right in. Something about the Horde? Victor heard all the words and registered about three of them, and understood two. They're not being that loud—David isn't the type for wild parties. They're just talking and laughing and mingling and eating the promised cake.

It shouldn't be this overwhelming. He's been in places that were louder and more crowded and much, much deadlier, and he was fine. But it's not like a warehouse full of Sabbat minions because he can't just kill his way out, and it's not like Confession or Asylum because his goal isn't to get information or report back to someone, it's just to be here, because he was invited, because David thinks he's— 

"Oh, hey!"

Victor jolts. Stupid, stupid—he swings around and smiles at David. "Hey yourself."

David leans against the counter, comfortable, happy, safe in his own home. "You doing okay?"

He should just say yes. But he's stressed and jumpy and not thinking straight and what comes out of his mouth is "I kind of lost track of who was who and now I don't know what to say to anyone so I'm hiding."

... Which is better than blurting out _I could kill every single one of you and you wouldn't be able to stop me._ Not by much, but, like, marginally.

David is staring at him. Then his expression goes all sympathetic and Victor tries not to squirm. "I'm sorry," says David. "I basically abandoned you, there. Want a sneaky reintroduction?"

No. Yes. What does he want? What is he doing?

He sucks in a breath. "That should not be a hard question," he says with a brittle laugh.

David puts a hand on his shoulder. It's big and soft and warm, and Victor doesn't know whether to whimper and melt or rip David's arm off. He just stands there. He might be shaking or that could just be his imagination. It's a little hard to tell. Did that start before or after the shoulder-touching? Also hard to tell.

... Probably not his imagination, because David looks concerned, and a flicker of Auspex confirms it, which is just fucking fantastic. Come to a guy's birthday, make _him_ worry about _you._

"Need a minute?" David says.

He needs to get his shit together. So ... yes. He nods jerkily.

David guides him down a side hallway, away from the main living space, and ducks into a nice quiet room with a neatly-made bed with green sheets. Probably David's own judging by the Shakespeare posters and the little X-wing model on the desk. Victor stares at the X-wing. "Why Wedge Antilles?" he says.

"What—oh. Um." David rubs the back of his neck. "I just ... I guess I felt for him, you know? He's not special. He doesn't have some important destiny. He's nobody. He's barely got a character at all in the movies. He's just some Rebel pilot. But he flew the Death Star mission anyway, both of them, and that was ... I mean, obviously I wasn't thinking of it like this when I was a kid, I just thought he was cool, but—he made it. In the end. He helped save the galaxy. And that meant a lot." He clears his throat. "Wow, uh, I mean ..."

"No," says Victor. "I get it." He hesitates for a moment. But reckless painful earnest honesty seems to be the done thing, tonight, so he says, "Padme. For me. It was Padme. Not as a kid, I didn't even like Star Wars as a kid, mostly I hated Leia because everyone said I _had_ to like her best because I was a girl but then everyone hated _Phantom Menace_ anyway, so—but Padme tried to help. Tried to do the right thing. And she fucked up. She gave Palpatine the chance he needed and she didn't realize until it was too late and she had to watch him burn everything she loved. She had to watch him _win_. And then she died."

"Tragedy fan?" David says with a half-smile.

Victor looks him in the eye. "There are no words for how much I fucking hate tragedies."

David blinks. "Then why—?"

"You can love a story and hate what it means. How it ends." Victor crosses his arms and drops his gaze to the carpet, suddenly self-conscious. "Um. Sorry."

"... I think I get it, too." David touches his shoulder again. "Can I—you don't have to tell me what your deal is, but I feel like there's _something_ going on, and I just—can I help? At all?"

"I—" He stops. Exhales. "No. But ... thank you. For asking."

"Okay." David squeezes gently, reassuring. "But, um, for whatever it's worth ... I don't think it's a tragedy. It's only a tragedy if you stop at the prequels. But that's not the end, it's the midpoint. The story isn't over yet."

Fuck. Is this a hugging moment? This feels like a hugging moment. Victor hasn't hugged anyone since before he died and holy _shit_ that is a depressing thought. He waffles for a second, then just fucking goes for it.

David rocks back a little at the force of the impact, but he's solid and soft and strong, and he smells like cheap cake mix, and then he starts hugging _back,_ and for a second Victor nearly panics because he's a corpse and David will notice and this was a terrible idea and—oh. Right. Blood magic and paranoia save the day again.

... David gives really good hugs.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S FINE IT'S ONLY BEEN LIKE ... HALF A YEAR ........ IT'S FINE
> 
> Anyway yeah, do note the "liberties were taken" tag; I am playing _very_ fast and loose with Hunter lore and mechanics because mumble mumble storyteller's discretion rule zero mumble mumble. :')

OCTOBER 2007

David calls out sick on a Wednesday. Wilson covers for him up in the lighting booth, and the rest of the crew divides up her usual tasks between them. Some of the scene transitions take a little longer than usual, and the director is clearly deep in one of his Hell Week moods, but otherwise, things go smoothly enough.

Low stakes. Small crises. Nothing he can't handle. Victor hauls setpieces and herds flocks of ensemble actors, and tries to shake the sense that something's _of_ _f._

Thursday is dress rehearsal. David's still out. Wilson has been texting him and says he says he's fine, but Victor fires off a message during a break: _hope ur ok, we got this but we miss_ _u <3_

No response. Granted, it is late.

Afterward, with all the machina from which deus will ex prepped and ready, with everyone leaving for the night, Victor climbs up to the catwalks. Between the usual tech week tension and the irrational directionless dread, he needs to fucking decompress. So he puts on something cynical and bright, sits down with his back to the railing, and settles in.

Until, under the tinny melody, a door slams.

Victor's eyes snap open. He pauses the music, wraps the earbud cords around the device, and stows it. It's late. Jane left half an hour ago, locking up behind her thinking everyone had already gone. Every so often, people do forget their shit in the green room, but they usually realize before they get too far, and well before Jane leaves. No one knows Victor's still here.

He slides down the ladder and into the wings. The ghost light—one part practicality, one part supersition—glows dim and lonely center stage, casting more shadows than it banishes. Victor keeps to those shadows as he follows the Auspex-heightened sound of movement. Heavy footsteps. Labored breathing.

Victor inhales slightly, and smells human blood.

_Fuck._

He stalks into the hallway behind the stage, careful and quiet. The noises are coming from the green room. He presses his back to the wall adjacent to the open door, steels himself, and peers around the corner.

Then he blinks. "What the—David?"

David is slumped in one of the chairs at a folding table, head in his hands. He jerks upright at the interruption. He looks _terrible._ His dark hair is a tangled mess, and he clearly hasn't shaved in a while; his eyes are bruised with exhaustion, red-rimmed and glassy, and there are tear tracks on his round cheeks, stark against the grime. There's blood on his jacket sleeve, trailing up from the cuff. A few more streaks on the left bicep, nearly black against the fabric.

His Auspex aura is pure, brilliant, molten gold.

David looks at Victor, and the blood drains from his face. His heartbeat spikes from "startled" to "mouse thrown into a pit with a rattlesnake." The aura doesn't change at all.

Victor drops the Auspex, and the gold snaps off like a spotlight. "David?" he says again.

"No," David says hoarsely. "Not you ..."

Rat-sucking maggoty mother of _fuck._ "Not me what?"

David's scrambling to his feet, practically tripping over himself. His pulse is still way too fast, his breaths are too shallow and tight, and his hands tremble as he grabs—oh, goody, that's a fucking fire axe, crusted with yet more blood. Really takes him back to shittier times. "You're one of _them,_ you're a—all this time—" David chokes out.

Yeah. Fuck. Victor raises his hands, palms out. "Let's—let's just talk about this, okay, I'm not going to—"

"Hurt me?" David giggles, shrill and horrible. "Right. Sure. Says the _vampire."_

Victor holds very still. He's blocking the exit but moving closer seems ... counterproductive, and backing out of the room isn't going to fix anything. He takes a breath. "Can you tell me what happened?" he says, pitching his voice low, gentle.

"You're not even gonna deny it?"

"I won't insult you by trying." Recent, personal, _bad_ experience. Mysteriously shiny aura. The Masquerade's already blown and pretending otherwise won't get him any closer to figuring out what the hell is going on.

"Then why do you care what happened?"

"Because you're my friend and I'm worried about you? You just wobbled in here in the middle of the fucking night, covered in somebody else's blood. That's, like, moderately alarming."

"You can tell it's not mine?" David's voice rises about an octave and a half.

"Yes, I can tell," Victor says. "And I'm really glad you're not injured, but ... talk to me, dude. Please."

Is it manipulation if it's true? Is it honest if it's calculated?

Does it matter?

David eyes him for a long moment. Slowly, he lowers the axe, but he's still tense as hell. "I was—I was just walking home. There was this couple, in front of me, they were drunk and they went down an alley and I—the guy shouted, so I went to look, and—and there was this. This thing. It looked like a person, it had a human face, but underneath ... And, and the girl's neck, it was broken and the v-vampire was—I heard a voice. Like the world was screaming in pain. It said _corruption_ and I just. I knew. I had to do something. But it, it got away and it took the guy and I had to—I had to do something."

Rogue vampire, maybe a Sabbat straggler, or a newbie. The veteran Anarchs and Camarilla holdouts might not give much of a shit about humans, but they don't usually brutally murder random people in alleys. But this voice thing, and the opaque gold aura? That's new. Not to mention the sudden ability to recognize the undead.

Victor files all that away and blows out a breath. "Yeah, that's a pretty good reason to burn a little sick leave," he says breezily. Then, softer: "Did you find him?"

David laughs, miserable and wet. "What was left of him." He tightens his grip on the axe again, expression darkening. "But I killed that monster. I killed it. And, and if you—if you try to—God, it's still screaming at me—you're—you're one of _them—"_

Victor is indeed one of _them,_ and therefore he is much, much faster than a human. So when David raises the axe, tears in his eyes, and stumbles towards him to take a swing, he closes the gap before David's gone more than half a step, pivoting so they're shoulder to shoulder, twisting the axe out of David's grip and letting his momentum carry him forward and away.

David staggers, knocking against the corner of one of the tables. It scrapes across the tiles with a nasty screech. He doesn't recover, doesn't go back onto the offensive. He just sort of ... crumples onto the floor, all the fight draining out of him as fast as it flared up. His shoulders hitch, every now and then. He isn't looking at Victor; he isn't looking at anything.

"You're everywhere, aren't you?" David says.

Victor sets the axe on the table and crouches near him. "Yeah. We are."

David rubs his face. "It's not just you, is it. Vampires."

"Nope. Werewolves, ghosts, all kinds of weird shit. The whole fuckin' monster mash."

David doesn't quite laugh, but he exhales sharply through his nose, and that's a step up from the despair.

Victor sinks his weight back to sit down fully. Less predatory, more conversational. He rakes a hand through his hair and sighs. "I'm sorry," he says. "That you got dragged into the bullshit."

"That I found out the truth?"

Ooh, there's the fight again. _Much_ better. Unfortunately, that swing actually lands. "You—"

"How many people have you killed? How—how do I know you're any different from that _thing?"_

Okay. Maybe a little too much fight. "David—"

"God, how _old_ are you?" His voice is rising back into the panicky register.

"Twenty-seven. Died at twenty-four. Difference between me and your pal is that I know that murder is both a dick move and an incredibly stupid one." Victor keeps his own voice neutral, maybe a little wry. "It draws _attention._ You may have noticed that we like to keep things quiet."

Not a lie, but not the whole truth by any stretch of the imagination. He has a body count in the triple digits. He should probably mention that, at some point.

David takes a few shaky breaths. He ducks his head and swallows. "What am I supposed to do?" he whispers.

Victor looks down. "Wish I fucking knew."

Something hits the loading dock door with a crash. Something scratches at it, metal rattling and squealing.

An inhuman shriek echoes through the building.

Victor stands up and reaches for the axe, all in one fluid motion. Then he tugs David to his feet one-handed. "Get to the wings and stay out of sight."

David's face has gone pale. "What—"

Another crash. Rapid pattering footsteps.

Victor recalibrates. Not enough time. "Never mind. Dressing room. Now. _Stay_ _out of sight_ _."_

David bolts, and Victor swings around and stalks into the darkened hallway, hefting the axe.

He doesn't flinch as the creature slams around the corner. It skitters to a halt when it sees him, hissing softly. It's almost doglike—it might have started life as a dog, or maybe several. The multiple mouths and extra eyes in unsettling locations and fleshy-yet-flayed look scream Tzimisce.

"Boo," Victor says, and then he snaps his free hand forward to send a bloodstrike lancing towards the creature.


	4. Chapter 4

OCTOBER 2007

David has seen enough horror movies and Buffy episodes to know that rubbernecking an ongoing monster fight is a great way to get killed. He hunkers down in the dressing room, hands pressed to his mouth, trying not to hate himself for not doing something, anything, for listening to his friend.

His friend, the _vampire_. Who is currently fighting ... something, judging by the meaty noises and cries of pain and that awful screaming. There's a crash from—oh, God, they're in the green room. They're right outside.

And David's just cowering here, _useless._

The screaming cuts out with a choked whimper. There's an upscaling whine that sets David's teeth on edge and makes the voice in his head wail _Usurper._ _C_ _orruption._ _P_ _urge the sickness—_

And then it all goes quiet.

David holds his breath.

"Clear," Victor calls out, sounding strained.

Slowly, shaking all over, David picks his way into the green room. It's ... kind of wrecked. Blood splattered across the floor, over the table, the cabinets along the back wall, the mirrors. There's a body, about the size of a large dog, lying crumpled in the middle of the room. It looks like someone jammed something explosive into its belly—streaks of gore radiate out from where it's fallen, and gobbets of flesh have been blasted away from it.

Victor is leaning hard against one of the counters by the mirrors, head bowed, axe gripped tight in one hand. The other is pressed to his midsection, which is—bad. The black t-shirt is torn, and under that ... It's an ugly wound, ragged and deep. It's not bleeding so much as oozing—but not enough to obscure something glistening and greyish, between his fingers.

David's stomach lurches. "Oh, God," he whispers.

"Eh, I've had worse," Victor says, and then he exhales raggedly and the axe drops with a clatter of wood and metal on linoleum, and he clutches the wound with both hands and says, "Fuck. Shit goddamn mother _fuck_. Okay." He squeezes his eyes shut. "Hey, so, uh, if you could grab some duct tape, that would be real swell right about now."

David stares. "Are you—you're—"

"This won't kill me any deader but I would really love to keep my insides in and my outsides out so _please_ _pass_ _the duct tape."_

David does. There's plenty of it, squirreled away in multiple locations just in case; he ducks out and grabs a roll from the dressing room stash and offers it with a hand that's only trembling a little. "What," he says, and then he clears his throat and doesn't look at the creature on the floor. "What was that thing?"

Victor tears off a strip of tape with his teeth and starts patching himself up. "Don't know the technical term," he says tightly. "Some vampires can make them. Probably belonged to the one you killed."

"It followed me," David realizes with a chill.

"Probably." Victor finishes wrapping the wound and sways a little, then braces himself on the counter. "Fuck," he whispers. "Note to self, don't get this out of practice and don't get cocky and don't fucking assume that just because it sounds like a leghead it'll be as stupid as a leghead."

"A _leghead?"_

"Not what they're actually called. I do not fucking care what they're actually called. They look like heads with legs and they scream the same way as Old Yeller here." He drags a hand down his face. "So, uh, yeah, welcome to the weird side, it's shit and everything wants to kill or eat you."

"Well, gosh, thanks," says David. But it—helps. Somehow. Nothing is actually better but Victor is still _Victor_ and that means it might, somehow, eventually, be less terrible. David pulls himself together. "We should—I'll get the mop. Start cleaning this up."

Victor grimaces. "Sorry about the mess."

"Hey, better messy than dead, right?" David pauses. "Um. No offense."

Victor bursts out laughing, then hisses in pain. "Ow, _fuck—_ none taken."

* * *

The stink of disinfectant mingles with the lingering stench of the creature and the metallic tang of blood. David keeps his breaths shallow and tries not to think about it.

Victor helps more than he probably should, moving slow and careful. Between the two of them they get the green room back to normal—there wasn't any structural damage, just some jumbled furniture and a lot of gore. And then it's just—it's eerie. Everything has changed. Nothing has changed.

"You good to get home?" Victor says quietly.

Something in him shrivels up at the thought of walking home in the dark through a city full of monsters. David opens his mouth, closes it, and looks away.

Cold fingers brush his arm, just above the elbow. David holds very still. But all Victor says is, "I have a halfway decent couch, if you want to crash somewhere closer."

For a moment, he hesitates. The voice in his head says _Corruption. Temptation. Purge the sickness._

Victor saved his life.

David rubs at his stinging, grainy eyes and says, "Okay."

* * *

They take the sewers. It's dark and wet and creepy, rats—David sincerely hopes they're rats—squeaking just out of sight, access tunnels yawning in the gloom, a labyrinth he never knew existed. It's slow going, but Victor hobbles onward, navigating without a shred of hesitation. Which is good, because getting lost down here would be ... bad. David clutches the fire axe and tries not to think about it.

They emerge in the basement of an apartment building and take the elevator up to the fifth floor. In the hallway, David realizes that he's never been to Victor's apartment. Before tonight, he didn't give it much thought. Now, though ...

Victor opens the door and stumbles over the threshold. It's pitch black inside, at first—then he flicks a light switch, and warm yellow incandescents snap to life.

David follows him in. The interior is weirdly unremarkable. Pale blue walls. A small kitchen with a fridge, humming peaceably. A living area with an old television, a sofa, and a low table between them. There's a window on the north wall, obscured by heavy blackout curtains.

Victor staggers over to the fridge, opens it, and pulls out three blood bags, like you'd see in a hospital. David stares as he bites into the top of one, puncturing the plastic, and drains the whole thing within a few seconds. He repeats the process with another bag. He rests his forehead against the freezer door for a moment, then swings the lower section shut and turns to David. His motions are smoother; he's holding himself like he's no longer afraid of his guts falling out. He smiles thinly and half-raises the final blood bag. "I'd offer, but it's one hell of an acquired taste."

David's about to say something intelligent like _please don't joke about this_ when he makes the mistake of actually thinking about dietary requirements in the context of—of vampirism. "I ... don't think that's kosher," he says instead.

Victor laughs, this time without wincing. "Yeah, definitely not." Then he goes thoughtful. "Although—huh. I know a guy I could ask. I'll let you know if there's an official verdict."

Jewish vampires. David already has a headache, but now it's extra achey. "There's probably about five different verdicts," he says. "But, um. Is it always ... people?"

Victor leans back against the fridge, the length of the countertop between them. "Not always. But often enough."

David watches him down the last blood bag and swallows. "Right."

Victor's eyes are very green and very sharp as he lowers the blood and runs his tongue over his lips. "Fun conversation time," he says, almost sing-song.

_Corruption._

David flinches, digging the heel of his free hand into his temple. "Shut up," he whispers.

Victor frowns. "Me, or ...?"

"The voice." David shakes his head, hard. "It keeps saying _corruption_ when I'm—near you."

"Huh. Well, that's fair. I'm a very bad influence."

"Vic."

"You started hearing it when you saw the first vampire, right?" Victor asks, still watching him with that weird, too-sharp look.

He hesitates. "You don't think I'm losing it?"

A scoff. "No. I think something happened to you, and we need to figure out what and why."

"'We,' huh?" David shifts his weight, abruptly on edge. "Why do you care? What's in this for you?"

Victor's jaw tenses. Then he says, with an intensity that belies the flippant answer, "Why not?"

Because there's a monster under the pretty face. Because David _saw_ it—he concentrates, and his vision wavers, and it's—dead, and hungry, and _empty,_ and what is he doing here, why did he agree to this, what was he _thinking_ saying yes to—

"You're my best friend. Of fucking course I care."

_Corruption._

The world is ruined and rotting and screaming in pain and Victor is part of that, Victor is—

David presses his fingertips to his eyes and kind of wants to scream, himself. He might whimper a little. He's going around in circles and he doesn't know what to do.

Footsteps, boots on floorboards. "Semi-relatedly, when was the last time you slept?"

David thinks back. "Wednesday afternoon? I think?" Things got a little blurry today—yesterday? Technically yesterday—but he was too wired to actually sleep. He lets his hands drop to his sides.

Victor is still in the kitchen area, but he's frozen in the process of putting the blood bags in some kind of disposal container, staring at David. "Jesus," he says. "Uh. Do you want to, like ... sit ... down? Or something? Shit, have you eaten at all?"

David starts laughing, shoulders shaking with the force of it. It's so ... normal, and he's swaying on his feet in a vampire's apartment listening to his best friend shift into mother hen mode after drinking three pints of human blood.


End file.
